Michael Endres is a superb pianist of integrity who clearly loves his
Schumann. If you are coming to terms with the composer's solo
piano music for the first time, this triple disc set will get
you off to more than a good start. Should you already have a
patchy collection, this could be a splendid way to plug a few
gaps. Even seasoned connoisseurs may wish to own the CDs for
the performances, in spite of the fact that some of the greatest
of pianists have recorded these works.

The chosen items represent all aspects of Schumann's solo keyboard
work. There is the youthful, virtuosic Toccata, the shortest
piece here, as well as the most extensive work Schumann wrote,
the Album für die Jugend which takes up the whole of
disc 2. And there is a work from the end of his life, the Theme
with Variations in E flat, a tragic swansong if ever there
was one. Schumann wrote down the melody, which he said the angels
had dictated to him, when in the grip of mental illness. Just
over a week later he had completed the work, and while in the
middle of making a fair copy, ran out of his home and threw
himself into the Rhine. He was fished out and died in an asylum two and a half years later,
not long after his forty-sixth birthday.

Early in disc 1 we can hear examples of music that illustrate the stylistic
range of Schumann's piano work. The Toccata is, by
Michael Endres' own admission in the booklet notes, "stupendously
difficult". On hearing it we can tell that the pianist
is indeed a virtuoso but that he is not prepared to turn pieces
such as this into vehicles of pianistic display (some would
and do, e.g. Argerich and Horowitz). That is what I meant when
I said he was a pianist if integrity (I am not necessarily implying
that Argerich and Horowitz are without integrity!). Before that,
the disc had opened with Humoreske's wistful first number
and Endres plays it with great beauty. He does take this kind
of movement quite slow - often slower than most - but avoids
overdoing the romanticism with manneristic rubato. The contrasting
third movement of the piece has a furious left hand part. Now
you cannot play Schumann without a strong left hand. It was
a special quality said to have been possessed by Schumann’s
wife, the great pianist Clara Wieck. One aspect of Schumann's
style is the tension generated by seemingly contradictory things
going on between right and left hand. This can take the form
of conflicting cross-rhythms. At other times it can be that
the right hand is playing a lyrical melody while the left indulges
in rapid, hair-raising passage work. To pull that off you need
not only to play the notes in the left hand accurately, but
keep them fluid and dynamically suppressed in order to maintain
the substantive mood generated by the right hand. One of the
supreme exponents of this technique was Sviatoslav Richter.
A good example of music that requires such interpretation is
the Intermezzo from the last work in the set, Faschingsschwank
aus Wien. I compared a 1962 recording of Richter with Endres.
To my astonishment, not only did I find Endres going slightly
faster but competing quite happily with Richter, maintaining
a silken lyricism and even sounding more secure (to be fair
to Richter, his was a live performance). Richter does have his
extra special charisma shining through – but whether that is
what the piece needs is another matter.

Of course, with piano playing of old favourites, there is the matter
of personal taste. For example, I have always thought of Kinderszenen
as a collection of musical fairy tales and I like them told
straight with some evocation of childhood innocence. Endres
does indulge a little romantic rubato that sounds too grown
up for me. But then Schumann did say the pieces were “grown-up
memories for grown-ups”. There are tiny mannerisms that you
would expect from any pianist which some people will like, others
not so much. For example Endres sometimes fractionally holds
before a strong beat.

These things are trifling in the context of the whole set which I think
a major recording achievement. I have no hesitation in recommending
these CDs to any of those three categories of listener I referred
to in my first paragraph.

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